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The Brazilian government has proposed a tax on the super-rich to fund projects of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, an initiative the Brazilian president presented to the G20 today in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazil’s Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said countries needed to significantly increase resources to achieve their Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) pledge to end hunger by 2030 and seek innovative sources to finance such projects.
“Another way to mobilize resources to fight hunger and poverty is to make the super-rich pay their fair share of taxes. All over the world, the super-rich use a range of tricks to evade the tax system. This means that at the top of the pyramid, the system is regressive, not progressive”, the Minister stressed in his G20 speech.
The constituent documents of the Alliance, an initiative proposed by Lula da Silva and open to all countries, were adopted today by acclamation at the Ministerial Meeting of the Forum, which brings together the world’s largest economies, so from now on any country interested can join the Alliance.
The alliance will officially begin operations at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro in November, with its founding members and its different projects, with Brazil then assuming the interim presidency of the forum.
The idea, according to its creators, is that each country develops its own plan and defines its goals for eradicating hunger and poverty, while the Alliance helps it achieve those goals financially and with experience and technology.
Discussions on the possibility of a tax on the super-rich are set to take place during a meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday.
Economist Quentin Parriniello, one of the authors of the report, which will be presented to the G20 finance and central bank chiefs on Thursday, said in an interview with Lusa that taxing the super-rich is a matter of “democracy’s survival”.
The political director of the EU Tax Observatory said the proposal was not just “an increase in revenue, but also a way to rebuild trust with governments.”
Speaking of the current system, the French economist stressed that “we must clearly demand that we have the ability to design a tax system in which those who are most able to pay taxes pay the same as everyone else.”
Brazil, which holds the presidency of the grouping of the world’s 20 largest economies (G-20) until the end of November, commissioned the report and hopes to get support from as many countries as possible during the financial summit of the group’s central bank ministers and governors in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which takes place from Thursday to Friday.
The report concludes that a minimum 2% tax on billionaires would be the most appropriate option to restore global tax progressivity and raise more than $250 billion (€230.9 billion at current exchange rates) per year.
According to the EU Tax Observatory, there are fewer than 3,000 billionaires in the world.
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